As circuit technology advances to create smaller circuits, software technology advances to provide a plethora of applications to cellular telephones. Today, cellular telephones are capable of operating as many applications as personal computers were in the past. Programs for cellular telephones may be installed at their manufacture, or may be downloaded via their wireless networks. A Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA card) or the like may also be inserted into the telephone itself to install applications if the telephone is equipped with an appropriate port.
One such application is “secret mode” or “mistress mode” which allows a user to categorize certain identity data as secret and store the designation in the communication device. For example, when receiving a call previously categorized, identified or designated as secret in the incoming call application by the user or other entity, the processor of the telephone will divert the call signal, so that the telephone will not ring. The call will be diverted into a file or folder that contains incoming messages and then flag the message data as a secret mode message. The user will then be able to access the secret mode message file with a password.
Currently, the data stored in each application's data folder are independently designated as secret by the user. Each secret designation is independent per application. Accordingly, the secret designation in one application is not shared by any other applications in communication device when secret mode is activated. The incoming call application, for example, requires manual input of a secret designation by the user of the caller's identity to provide the identity data with a secret flag. Were a user to use the secret mode application for the outbound calls application, the secret mode application would require further manual input of a secret designation of the same caller's identity data for the inbound calls application. Other applications operate in the same manner. Were a user to wish data be secret with respect to other applications installed on a communication device such as a telephone book, email address book, draft files and calendar, the user must redundantly enter the secret designation manually for data in the data folders for each application. In this way, if the user does not manually input secret designations for such identity data used in other applications of the communication device, otherwise secret data may be inadvertently displayed.
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